


whiskey and coke

by CheapNightmares



Series: Original Work [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Lani is a medical examiner, Lesbian Character of Color, Sadness, not understanding of one's own sexuality, originally posted on my tumblr, pregnancy mention, really awesome dog, so some MILD death mention, this is why it's important to have representation of queer folk in the media!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 12:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20675657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheapNightmares/pseuds/CheapNightmares
Summary: Lani drinks as Cookie sleeps, reflecting on life and all that's gone wrong.





	whiskey and coke

On the table: one glass, more whiskey than coke now. There’s two bottles beside it, one glass and amber, the other plastic and sweating in the mild heat of the apartment.

On the sofa: one mutt, medium sized, wiry haired and snoring peacefully. A paw twitches in some unnamed dream. Chasing rabbits, maybe. The dog woofs in her sleep and more paws twitch, faster and faster, chasing.

Lani lifts the heavy bottomed glass and sips again. Her mind is foggy but she keeps going, topping it off again and again, more whiskey than coke. If she drinks enough if will chase the worries away. It always does.

High-school. Girls chatting about boys and all Lani feels is disinterest, wondering why. Girls are supposed to like boys and boys are supposed to like girls. There’s the occasional rumor about an aunt or uncle with Peculiar Proclivities (always said like that, each word capitalized) that moved to the fabled land of Europe. Rumors that are always spoken with an upturned nose and a sneer. Lani accepts a few offers from shy boys with hopeful smiles and tries out the dating scene. She holds hands and gives a few chaste kisses. Eventually the boys move on, feeling wounded in a way they don’t understand. Lani makes excuses that feel like lies about wanting to wait until college to Find A Man. Some of the girls understand, after all this is a New Age when women go to college and find careers before husbands. They don’t mention the jealousy they feel for her, Lani and her almond eyes (a brown so rich it seems to glow). Lani and her long, thick hair (black as the dusk between the stars on a moonlit night).

College and her parents make easy comments with uneasy eyes over dinner. Talk of husbands and grand babies. Her career is important but husbands and grand babies, husbands and grand babies. Lani smiles and nods and says the right things while she thinks of the soft brown-haired girl with laughing eyes, feeling thrilled and shamed all at once. Sometimes she dreams of her and wakes flushed, confused.

One day she sees that brown haired girl, she of beautiful curves and laughing eyes, with her hand laced together with a boy’s (he of scraggly soul patch and awkward lines) and Lani feels a deep stab of hurt she doesn’t want to understand. She does her best not to think about it but the hurt lasts longer than she could have imagined.

Later she meets a different boy at a party. A soft boy, a shy boy. He has brown hair and talks about mathematics she doesn’t understand and makes jokes she laughs politely at. Benny wants to work for NASA, she wants to work with corpses. None of this matters, yet she thinks less of the girl she never spoke to but had such grand ideas of.

He meets her parents and they approve. She meets his parents and they approve. Their parents meet each other and it’s approval all around. In quieter tones they speak of (grand)children and incomes, how really it’s better for the woman to stay at home and of course sweet Benny could provide a comfortable household. Their parents are Old World where girls don’t cut open rib cages and weigh the hearts inside.

Lani says she wants to wait until marriage and Benny accepts despite the ache between his legs. He’s a good man, an understanding man. To wait is an Old World thing to say, Lani knows, telling herself she’s being morally upstanding and not thinking about soft girls with soft scents. She tells herself in time such thoughts (girls and their smiles, girls and their eyes, girls and the way they move through the world like delicate birds and powerful goddesses) will fade, in time. It’s nothing more than an anomaly, life is full of such things. Strange wants and needs. Everyone has them. Of course everyone has them.

She dares to think of Europe and peculiarities. She puts both things out of her mind. Locks them away in a dark cupboard and hides the key from herself. 

Graduation comes and Benny has a ring and a question. For a moment a no dances just behind her lips and that moment scares her. She thinks of the girl with the boy. Boys ask girls and girls say yes, girls don’t think of asking other girls. Not even in this New Age. Lani says yes (as expected) and the ceremony is small but it’s also beautiful (of course). Parents check that off their mental lists and circle what lies underneath, expecting it to be fulfilled in nine months from now, a year at the most. The Old World is still haunting the New Age. Of course it does. 

On their wedding night she sees hurt for the first time in her husband’s eyes and tells the first of many lies - it’s not you it’s me just tired of course what a big day we’ve had - and sees it fade away again (in the present she drains her glass, fills it, more whiskey than coke, more and more and more). 

It takes five years. She learns the lies like the back of her hand. She hides the little blue pills that keep her barren. She hides a lot of things as she pretends not to see the pain of misunderstanding. She pretends not to see the wistful looks her soft boy with his soft hands casts at the babies in their strollers. What is a child but another twenty years with a man she cannot bring herself to love?

Benny cries when she gives him the papers to be signed in triplicate and Lani holds him close (refilling her glass with nothing but whiskey, no lies now). It takes five years but she doesn’t lie to him now. She tells him about the girls. She tells him she’s sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for those five years she stole away, leaving his arms empty, no laughter of children filling the silent spaces of the home they share. In the end he understands. Benny is a good man, a soft man but a good man. Lani loves him just a little for it. Loves him like a friend, she can’t love him like a husband.

On the table: one glass, filled with whiskey. One Christmas card, Benny beaming on the cover, a baby in his arms, another in his lap, his glowing wife swollen with a third. 

On the couch: One mutt, dreaming of rabbits in fields, uncaring of girls or boys, Old Worlds or New Ages. Unaware of the tear that slips from one of those almond shaped eyes and down skin the color of gold at dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments give strength to all the queer girls out there who aren't quite sure what their feelings mean.


End file.
